Diamonds & Rust: Type O Negative – World Coming Down

SKIP IT

Believe it or not, the author of this article has not always been a beacon of handsome joy. The Isaac of the late 2000s was not a man of constant sorrow, per se, but a boy of occasional, self-inflicted sorrow. Loneliness was the twin companion of anger, often spurred on by a raucous peanut gallery of like-minded chums and cheap beers.

I had a great life, admittedly. My bachelor’s degree was on the horizon. I played guitar for hours. My problems in macro were trifles, but I couldn’t help picking at the sticky, green globules. These moments were soundtracked by the most depressive albums I could get my ears in. Warning’s Watching From a Distance was a potent and (un)fortunate find. That monolith of mournful, melodic majesty sang from the speakers of my tiny pickup many nights as I drove in the dark, by myself, through the empty roads around my state school. The roads would wind, the mind would wander and before long it would all coalesce. Riffs of ragged misery, the pounding of the drums, above all a downtrodden yet still commanding figure both orchestrating the maelstrom and being swallowed by it. Sound familiar? I think you know where this is going.

World Coming Down is not the first record I would recommend to inquiring, Negative minds. It is the winter of Type O’s discography in many ways. The romantic autumn of October Rust is glorious in its multi-hued splendor. Life is Killing Me, like the rebirth of spring, contains both the flirtations of summer’s carefree abandon and the icy grip of pre-dawn March. World Coming Down is frigid and dark, and honestly on some listens, by the end, a bit too long for my liking, but in all of Type O’s discography you will not find an equal in sheer emotional weight. It is the aural embodiment of Peter Steele’s personal blue period, and though he has not totally abandoned his trademark wit, it is in short supply. His legendary voice, once capable of ensnaring every goth goil in Brooklyn with a beguiling sneer, has been hollowed out, the void filled with a palpable despair and anger. As evidenced by the eerie interludes, World Coming Down is a document of self-destruction, of collapse both current and portentous. 

SINUS

In all of Type O Negative’s discography you will not find a more forbidding opening (Iknowit’snottheopeningtrackI’mmakingapoint) track than “White Slavery”. It has been a fun thought experiment over the years to imagine the freshly-eyelinered October Rust superfan hearing this song for the first time. This is a World (HAHA) away from the beautiful and devious sexuality of “Christian Woman” and “Love You to Death”. In fact, World Coming Down is uncharacteristically sexless at a time when Pete Steele had become an underworld icon of dangerous, imperious beauty.

 Church organ leads in a pounding drum pattern and a choir enters gently. Within seconds the harmony is replaced by a twisting bend of a riff, guitar and bass in unison, descending into the grave and back out again. Pete begins the first verse utterly affectless and near the lower end of his range, intoning simple 3-4 word passages. These words are echoing upward from a hitherto unexplored bottom. Opening with one of the darkest songs on the album is a bold move, and one might be tempted to think that Pete is sneering at his fans. That is, until the chorus:

“I’ve lost myself again.

 I’ve lost myself again.

 It’s a nightmare but it’s clear.

 It will end but when?”

These words are howled into a gentle chromatic descending progression, the first but not last instance of the Drab Four’s penchant for homage to Beatles-esque harmony. In another’s hands and through another’s pen this section and the ensuing one could even be construed as uplifting. Alas, cocaine is a specifically twisted muse and master. WIth only four major sections of material, “White Slavery” is sparse in content but surprisingly brisk for its 8:21 track length. The tone for the remainder is set thusly and severely, the passage into the album’s second official single defined by trailing bass fuzz and exhausted drums.

LIVER

All of what made Type O Negative such a curiously powerful and distinct force can be found within “Everyone I Love Is Dead”. Pete was a well-documented imbiber of poisons and his own perceived ambrosias, at times indistinguishable from each other. This track is the dregs of his own indulgence. What is left? The purity of the band’s interplay, the hard-nosed riffwork and the murky swirl of Pete’s detached, black humor. Call me on a Saturday and this song is in my top 5 of theirs, on a Tuesday top 3, on Friday I’m in love (with the song). 

“Everyone I Love Is Dead” is a lamentation for immediate family members (explored more directly later on in “Everything Dies”) but it is also a present-day lamentation for himself. Pete was perhaps the patron saint of pointed self-reflection. The verses roll forward, alternating lyrics and a sliding, syncopated riff, until a pre-chorus “GOD DAMN IT” comes in like a red-hot brand for which Pete is both the wielder and the victim. Church organ returns in the chorus, backing another descending chromatic riff, and a subterranean choir chants the title, breaking the sentence before the end, leaving the last word “dead” to bring up the rear, incredulous yet matter-of-fact. Similar to “White Slavery”, this song is lacking much of the theatrical ornamentation of the album prior. The meat is the core band; Josh Silver’s keys are very much in a supporting role to the string section, coloring the scene as necessary but otherwise not intruding. Kenny even gets to let rip a fiery lead in the last section, jumping up an octave and wailing before Pete vamps and with a final scream tears everything down to a lone, theremin-like presence, climbing downward. From here we detour into a different realm.

A bizarre trip into psychedelia, perhaps inflicted by a medical provider, perhaps (and more likely) inflicted by one’s own pharmacological choices, “Who Will Save the Sane” is a wayward, jaunty excursion into intoxicated whimsy. It truly mimics the air of the philosopher drunkard – morbidly astute and absolutely pickled. Riffs swing into each other through the verses and splash into the wide-open chorus, Pete taking more rhythmic liberty than usual with his croons. For as abstract as this song can be it is still grounded in an unpleasant reality. World Coming Down begins as we all do, naked and pleading for relief, but at this point the rawness has begun to scab over with metaphor. “Who Will Save the Sane” is a cleverly timed balm, a cool, comforting tease after being inundated with bleakness. Yet, there are only two options at this point in alcohol-induced solace: you either let the high slowly die until the morning or you tip another back and hasten oblivion. Thankfully, Type O chose the latter.

LUNG

We have now arrived at the Marianas Trench, the yawning, abyssal chasm in this deep, green sea. “World Coming Down” is the crux around which the album pivots and the embodiment of its ethos. 

 Up until the first chorus, the guitars and bass reach forward with a skeletal grasp, interlocking with a taut but brittle strength then releasing, the wind rushing through their gaps. At this stage Peter is at the lectern and the sermon is at hand; Kenny, Josh and Johnny keep their places below the pulpit. Kenny takes the first chorus, as if Pete cannot bear to relay the message himself. The chorus is short-lived; another of the album’s leveling unison riffs unfurls until it breaks under its own weight. This riff alternates with sequences of quiet self-reflection. Not since “White Slavery” has Peter been so exposed. His voice alternates between defeat and masochistic rage, ripping the arrows from his armor in order to plunge them back into the weaker seams. 

At 7:22, a switch flips. Josh plucks away a cryptic figure in the background and now it is Pete who handles the chorus an octave down and more subdued with an almost questioning cadence. This is the wry smile. The bloodshot wink. With a rousing “BRING IT ON DOOOOOWN”, Kenny brings us into a full-band chorus backed by placid sitar. Pete again takes the lead back in the original octave and the mood has shifted. The dead-serious doom is replaced with a tongue-in-cheek gloom, complete with hearty “oohs” and “ahh”s on the big hits. Even at his personal worst, he couldn’t help but say fuck it, there’s still some fun to be had, right boys? “World Coming Down” is, to me, the precursor to a new direction in the band’s sound. Could the one-two punch of the peerlessly hopeless “Anesthesia” and the sardonic “The Dream is Dead” exist without the dichotomy of this title track? Knowing Mr. Steele’s inherent talent? Probably, but perhaps this is the genesis of that well, synthesis.

Yes, despite all that was promised by the grim opening seven tracks, the back six do delve into some much-needed veins of cheekiness. Maybe it’s not full-on, Monty Python cheekiness, but it’s not all misery.

HUMERUS

I would not describe myself as a music fan interested in fun. This is the most verbiage I’ve twiddled down since college, and on what? The most sad-sack album from an occasionally (or at least to the unfamiliar eye and ear) sad-sack band. That being said, I’m not ANTI-fun. Fun is fun! Well, when it’s the kind of fun I want to have, but that’s a different story (stanza) for an altogether different publication (Butt Jokes Bimonthly).

With the exception of “Everything Dies,” the remainder of World Coming Down occupies a more sunny pasture. I mention “Everything Dies” in passing because, while still a worthy addition to an album of worthy additions, I just don’t find it very interesting. The subject matter is self-evident given what the listener has heard during the first half and the music is pleasant but prosaic. It was the first single of the World Coming Down release cycle and I believe that was quite intentional. The overall sound would have placated October Rust junkies while still being fresh and catchy enough to toss onto an MTV rotation for a nice 4 PM downer. In short, good song, give it a listen, read on.

Being enraptured by unavailable and/or dangerous women is a common theme in the Type O pantheon and World Coming Down contains not one but two such narratives. “Creepy Green Light” and “Pyretta Blaze” inhabit the same conceptual universe, one wherein a gigantic hero is bewitched alternately by a woman who has shuffled off this mortal coil and another whose very flesh ignites her victims. Musically, though, there exists overlap between both these two tracks as well as the penultimate track, “All Hallows Eve”, which we will explore soon but not just yet.

 “Creepy Green Light” is, you guessed it, the creepier of the two romantic tunes. Come to think of it, probably also the greener of the two in a synesthetic sense (the author does not purport to be a synesthete). Another of World Coming Down’s many clean bass riffs sets the scene for an ultimately lively but still moody mid-paced rocker. Similar to “Everyone I Love is Dead”, this song sounds like it had been long-rehearsed in the garage before setting it to tape. The band interplay is on point. The ornamentation flickers unobtrusively. It’s as if the music is in service to itself rather than being the soundtrack to a diary. “Pyretta Blaze” shares this group chemistry and tacks onto it the catchiest chorus of the album.

 Author’s aside: years and years ago I was hanging out with a friend who was openly, and in my memory, questionably critical of Type O. At some point I was goofily singing this chorus to myself and he said something to the effect of “what is that, Type O Negative?…” with a grimace of utter revulsion. The fact that he was right illustrates A) that the band’s ability to craft a melody so recognizable as their own is downright fascinating and B) he has the worst taste of anyone in recorded history.

“All Hallows Eve” takes the atmospheric blueprint drafted by “Creepy Green Light” and grafts it onto the structure of “Pyretta Blaze”, creating a perfectly spooky and savage hybrid. Clean bass intro and Peter’s basso profundo? Check. Lyrics penned under the curling graveyard fog? Check check. Massive, jamming outro? Check check check. With (T)hese (T)hree (T)hings, er… tracks, all the pieces naturally fall into place to carry the album out on a combinatory high note both in terms of the musical chops and the overall mood. The blue has gradually, chromatically shifted back to a familiar green.  

You didn’t think you would survive a Type O Negative album without a cover song, did you? For shame! This time the Drab go full Fab with a medley of three Beatles tunes. If you’ve heard the originals and if you’ve heard Type O Negative you know what you’re in for. Really, as far as Type O covers go this one plays the songs relatively straight. This is not the barely-contained punk rendition of “Bad Moon Rising” nor is it the molassified seduction of their “Summer Breeze”. Nope, just three undeniable classics as presented by massive fans. I’m not mad about it, and neither are you, OK? 

SKIP IT REDUX

Peter Steele has been dead now for close to fifteen years. Type O Negative are just as long gone. Peter lived, loved, lost and passed while I was still fiddle-faddling around at my state school, cruising the night, tilting at windmills of my own design.. Think about the last fifteen years of your life, the incalculable amount of events, both trite and significant. In the last five years I’ve checked more than a few adulthood boxes that college me would have proclaimed unreachable. Yet, here I am, and am I the same person as before?

 I’ve been told that every six months one experiences some form of meaningful change. Often I think about if people can truly change, if we are inexorably programmed to our factory settings from birth, if time heals all wounds, and indeed, if it should. World Coming Down was unveiled and 11 years later its architect retired for good. The Peter Steele of 1999 was unequivocally a man of constant sorrow and to our great benefit that period of his life is permanently enshrined on wax. Was he healed in 2010? If he had continued on, would he have been healed in 2024? 

My brother is the biggest Type O Negative fan I know and it’s no contest. He introduced me to the band (to metal, while we’re at it) and took me with him to two shows of theirs, the second of which was the second to last show Peter ever played. I can blather on and yada yada forward but by now you’re tired of me.  To conclude, a paraphrased (and much more succinct) quote of his on this, Type O Negative’s magnum opus:

“World Coming Down takes one man’s grief, pain, and sardonic view on the human condition and combines them into an album that is at times dense, yet somehow still relatable and cathartic, and all conveyed in a way few artists besides Peter Steele could accomplish.”

RIP Peter Steele, RIP Type O Negative

Posted by Isaac Hams

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